Ho, hum. Another boringly perfect day

Hello from Palas de Rei:
Before i start on today, I want to explain a little about yesterday. I left the internet place feeling that I had been small minded and petty. I explained to Carol what I had written and she said that she totally agreed with me. It had been disconcerting to her as well during the day to see the "swarms," as she called them, parading down the Camino as if on a walk to the park for a birthday celebration. She had been put off by the "designer" clothes now so prevalent on the trail, as opposed to the t-shirts and shorts of our earlier time.
She reminded me that we had attended a session on the Camino early on where they advised us to walk alone if possible, two was okay, and three was already as many as should be together at a time, since the Camino was a time for reflection and inward thought. So here we are with groups of 8-10 people passing us talking loudly, shouting from the front of the group to the back, and generally "on a Sunday lark" as she put it. People with earphones and music blasting from their ears again spoiling the reverie. One woman came by in complete tennis outfit. Short little tennis skirt, matching top, tennies and little white sport socks. Except for the backpack on her back, she might have been off looking for her lost racket.
For the first three weeks plus, Carol and I usually walked together but not surrounded by other people all the time. Some afternoons Carla would join us, and on other days we were passed, or we passed ourselves, people from "our Camino" with whom we would converse for a while and then everybody would do their own pace and we´d be back alone again. That was great for us.
The great thing about travelling with Carol is that it´s the best of both worlds. We have been together for so long, that we can walk for a long time without words. We´re not bored with each other, and it´s not that we´ve nothing to say to each other, we just know that we like our private time and being together doesn´t detract from that. We still talk lots during the day, but when you’re are on the road for 8-10 hours together, there´s time for both.
So here we are with different rules, and it took a little time to "adjust" to them.
But today we awoke to the day with a different attitude and were rewarded with what we both feel was our best and most perfect day on the Camino, and that´s saying a lot!
We left the refugio at 5:55 and started our immediate climb of 1,000 feet. The legs said: "What no warm-up time?" but they responded well. The road was level and since I had started the day without jacket I did not get overheated. Carol chucked her jacket by 7:30 and we continued. The temperature was great, and even though we walked through the fog, it did not detract from our walk. The other foggy day was a real drag, but today was fine. At the top of our climb the fog lifted and there was Galicia in front of us in all its glory. Checkerboard plots of arable land, pueblos dotting the horizon and those beautiful clouds giving a frame to the total picture.
Our day was punctuated by the eve-pleasant locals, being, well, ever pleasant. An old man on his porch with his dog sleeping dutifully at his side responded with a thrust of his cane to the air, when greeted by "Buenas Dias, Senor." "Egualmente" he exuberantly returned. A woman working in her huerto, don´t call it a jardin, took time from hoeing the weeds to respond agreeably to my request to film her and her garden. Then an old woman with grizzled face walking toward us stopped and engaged us in conversation in response to my suggestion that today was a great day for a walk. She had one of those timeless faces, toothless in great measure, lines that showed many years of living, and a spirit which belied the old adage that the good die young.
The downers of the "newbies" was more than compensated by conversations with three different pilgrims at different times during the day who had completed their Camino and were headed, walking, back to France, from whence they had come.
The best was the last, a man of about 50 who walked with his dog a short haired shepherd of some sort. The dog had its own backpack specially fitted for him with pouches on either side for balance, and complete, get this, with his very own scallop shell on his back, the perpetual sign of a pilgrim. Now that´s what I call the Camino spirit. I can´t tell you how much it buoyed us to see that and talk to him for just a moment.
The weather was perfect, cool and the walk gave us a mixture of sun to warm our bodies, then shade as we walked through what Carol called the "Sherwood forest" effect. She could sense the old pilgrims walking through these woods, protected from bandits by the Templar knights, wearing only their cloaks and carrying nothing more than their staffs, and a double ended gourd for their water. It truly gave her a sense of connection with the pilgrims over the centuries.
I looked at my watch and we had walked for 4 hours and 45 minutes and we didn´t feel tired at all. Contrast that yesterday when we were so tired and the last part of the trip was a matter of determination to get to the end. We walked three miles further today in an hour less than it took yesterday. Carol said that her feet did not hurt her for the first time in the entire trip, and so we are so charged spiritually, mentally, and physically that we can´t wait for tomorrow, even though it will be a long 18 mile trek, the last of the long days.
We passed a milestone today. We no longer have the long climbs. We are headed downward, steadily downward toward Santiago. Now downward in Spain is, as I’ve mentioned before a relative term. To go down 200 feet means that you have to give back 150 of it somewhere later on. Then when you descend 300 feet you have to climb back 200. So, it´s the old, two steps forward, one step backward, bit. But we will not see any more climbs to gain altitude, we could almost roll downhill from here:-)
We got a room tonight. Upon our arrival here there was a long line at the door of the refugio which didn´t open until 1 p.m. Not wanting to spoil the high we were on, and there´s nobody we know there anyway, we opted for a room where we didn´t have to wait for a shower, didn´t have to worry about hot water, or who was snoring in the bunk next to us. If I hear a snorer tonight, I can pat her on the butt and tell her to roll over:-)
I never understood the whole snoring thing. Both Carol and I do snore on occasion, but it´s easily solved as I have said. But, now this is strictly an unscientific study, but it´s my opinion, that something like 27 percent of the general population has a snoring problem, or should I say that 73 percent of the rest of us has a problem with the 27 percent that do snore.
Earplugs are the only savior, but even that causes problems. For example, when I have to get up in the middle of the night to us the bathroom, I am an old man after all, the earplugs prevent all sound except the sound of my own breathing, which I hear from the inside of my own head. It´s the Darth Vader breathing, as Carol calls it. She solves the problem by removing one plug when she gets up, after all, she is an old lady, in addition to being my old lady:-), but I just walk down the corridor of beds, listening to the sound of my breath like I was underwater using scuba gear. I feel like a scene out of some cheap slasher movie, where you see the guy moving amongst the sleeping bodies in anticipation of the big scene. Beds are all around me as I move, men, women, girls, boys in all sorts of sleeping contortions, wearing an array of sleeping attire, now with the newbies, even two piece color coordinated pajamas. Oh, what´s happened to my old Camino where everybody slept in just a tee shirt of boxer shorts. Anyway, I digress. Walking down the corridor of beds in the middle of the night with the sound of your own breathing as the only thing you can hear, is very, let me repeat, very, other-worldly.
Well, there´s more on my list to talk about, I´m getting behind again, but there´s supposed to be internet connections tomorrow as well, so let me close by saying that the end is so close we can almost physically feel it in front of us. We saw a wind farm off in the distance today and were reminded that the first time we saw some we were on day three of our trek, and here we are with only three days to go.
Depending upon which list you are using we have either 42, 44, or 47 miles to go. This whole thing is such a guess thing anyway. But the point is we are soooooooo close. Physically we are well, mentally we are in great shape, and with today being such a great day, spiritually, we are in perfect shape. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but in our moods, bring it on. We should be there by the time most of you get up on Monday morning.
So until the next cyber connection, just know that we are connected with each of you on this list in ways far more important than words can express. Some of you we haven´t talked to in a long time while others we have had emails from as recently as today. No matter, you are in our hearts and never far from our thoughts.
Love to all, we remain,
Carol and Jim